Surging of Recalls: a Show or a Game?

As entering the final month of 2009, Volvo XC60 has been recalled. Ford’s imported cars, Renault and Wuling faced the same fate, according to the Yangzi Evening News. Just like the H1NI, recalling has been spreading at a fast speed, infecting every vehicle of each department like a kind of epidemic, from luxurious cars with price of several millions to mini cars worthy of decades of thousands, from the Japanese to U.S. and the German.

　　Luxurious cars have been involved.

Administration of Quality Supervision (AQS) released data which showed that from 2004 when China began to implement the recall system for defective vehicles to the end of 2009 over 300 million defective vehicles had been recalled in total. This year the recalling has been surging. A large numbers of various vehicles have been involved in it. The recall has already reached 43 times by December 12. There is a recall per week on average. In those recalled cars, not only the domestic brands were there, Ferrari, Maserati and other high-end luxurious cars were also in the list. The recall has been spreading very extensively, which is far beyond imagination.

　　The recall is just a show?

As just passing the half in December, the State General Administration of Quality Supervision issued consecutively six recall notices of defective vehicle products. But the total recalled vehicles were less than 30,000, together with the recalled cars during the first 11 months of this year, there were about 1.3million vehicles that were recalled in the whole country, which is less than one fifteenth of the number of recalled cars in the United States last year. Some insiders believe the recall has turned into a show by domestic enterprises. Except Guangzhou Honda and Toyota’s massive recalls, the others are all chipping away. In the 43 times recall, recall of cars involved less than 1000 units took place 18 times.

Analysts believe that China’s recall is defective both in quality and quantity, in comparison with U.S. who recalled 778 times last year and 22.2 million cars were involved. It is easy to deal with the problems in most of the recalled cars. Basically, they are small problems without too much cost. In addition, some issues can not be neglected in the process of recall, such as the delayed report of recall, the low recall ratio caused by inappropriate inform of car owners, a number of 4S stores’ requirement for owners to repair their cars at their own expense, recall announcement committing free replacement turned into free testing, etc.

　　Consumers are no longer scared.

Although there are actually many problems occurred in the recall, what surprised us is that the recall system in China has been increasingly mature. From 10 times in 2004 to 47 times in 2008, recall took place more and more frequently at a high speed. Guangzhou Auto Honda and Guangzhou Auto Toyota recalled 500,000 and 700,000 cars respectively this year, engraving deep trace in the history of recall in China.

With development in these years, automobile recall system has been widely accepted by society, especially the concept of acceptance. Consumers are no longer scared. A survey on consumers’ thought on the recall reflects that half of the respondents expressed that the recall made by automobile manufacturers is a reflection of a responsible attitude to consumers, and the recall will not have too much impact on consumption. These consumers believe that automobile is complex manufactured goods. It is understandable for certain of problems. Ferrari, Porsche, BMW and Mercedes-Benz those top car manufacturers are unable to escape the recall, which shows that the recall is not a terrible thing.

　　Recall List of 2009:

　　January 5 Jaguar recalled 87 Jaguar XF

　　January6 Subaru recalled 1,135 Outback.

　　January 23 Southeast recalled 3,630 units of Mitsubishi Galant.

　　February 18 Recall of 9,390 units of Mitsubishi Outlander

　　March 18 Maserati recalled 171 units of CEO, GT and GT S sedan.

　　April 27 Changan Ford Mazda recalled 3,434 Taiwan Fox, Winning Mondeo, Mazda.

　　April 27 Shanghai GM Buick recalled 9,037 units of new Excellence.

　　April 27 FAW recalled 1078 Pentium.

　　April 24 Guangzhou Auto Toyota recalled 259,119 Camry.

　　May 16 Shanghai GM Wuling recalled 4,768 units of Spark.

　　June 11 FAW Toyota recalled 57 Taiwan Rand Rd Ze Cool.

　　June 25 1,294 units of BMW 7 Series Sedan were recalled.

　　May 11 3,136 Volvo S80 were recalled.

　　June 12 153,065 units of Dongfeng Nissan Teana were recalled.

　　June 20 13,502 China Brilliance Junjie, Grandeur were recalled.

　　July 13 409 units Volvo S80 were recalled.

　　July 20 8,680 Volkswagen Touareg were recalled.

　　July 13 Changan Ford recalled 7,563 units of New Carnival.

　　August 25 Recall of 280,811 units FAW Toyota Corolla, Vios.

　　September 14 Recall of 2175 units Geely Vision.

　　September 28 Recall of 235 units KIA Sportage.

　　September 29 Recall of 9,464 units Guangzhou Automobile Honda Accord.

　　October 7 Recall of FAW-Volkswagen 2076 units of Magotan.

　　October 7 Recall of 326 units Volkswagen EOS, CC, R36, R36, Variant, GTI.

　　October 7 Recall of 358 units Audi TT.

　　October 14 Dongfeng Nissan recalled 51,813 Qashqai, X-Trail.

　　November 6 Brilliance Zhonghua recalled 8984 units of Junjie FRV.

　　November 3 1582 units of Brilliance BMW 5-Series were recalled.

　　November 20 Recall of 704 units Jaguar XF.

　　November 25 Ferrari F355 was recalled.

　　December 1 Recall of 2,056 units of Southeast V3 Ling Yue.

　　December 7 Renault recalled 2,136 units.

　　December 10 Ford recalled 528 imported cars

　　December 11 Shanghai GM Wuling recalled 5068 units of Wuling Hong Tu and Wuling Light

　　December 11 Volvo recalled 11,112 S40 cars.

　　December 12 Recall of 4,640 units of Volvo XC60. (Translator: Qinghua/Sailor)

　　See Original Chinese Report Please Click